Archives for May 2013
decision making process
31 May 2013 | Censorship, Politics | No Comments
The red-brick building just behind the famous Harrods department store is always the same. And the Scotland Yard agents guarding the building day and night are still there with their vans and their cameras keeping a watchful eye. One year has passed and Julian Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, with no opportunity to take a single step outside without being arrested by Scotland Yard, which has been policing the building at the cost of 4 million pounds over the last 12 months.
и последующее интервью:
It is in this embassy that “l’Espresso” met the founder of WikiLeaks, for the second time since he was granted political asylum by Ecuador.
очень хорошее:
QUESTION: In the long run do you think the Internet will reshape democracies by empowering participation or rather social control through surveillance?
ANSWER: It is very difficult to tell, that is why the current time is interesting: which trajectory will we get? Obviously we will get part of the dystopian trajectory and part of the utopian one, the question whether it is mostly dystopian is still to be answered. There are many reasons why aspects of the dystopian view are inevitable. Technology inherently tend to centralisation, that is because it is complex to make, so it need to be specialised and located in one point. Look at internet corporations: they are extremely complex industries, as a result they tend to merge with the state in order to preserve themselves. But then the big tendency in the other direction is democratisation and the new politics that has springing out as a result
30
31 May 2013 | Humour | No Comments
а вот смешной тест на понимание силлогизмов. или, вернее, на въедливость и внимательность.
skewered straight through the mouth
30 May 2013 | Literature | 2 Comments
переводы Гомера Роберта Фейглза, безусловно, получились сильными и яркими, отчасти даже кинематографичными, но, одновременнно, и упрощенными[1].
впрочем, это старая дискуссия, мне кажется[2]: что лучше, известная громоздкость, даже архаичность (среди русских вспоминается “Илиада” в переводе Николая Гнедича), или дополнительный мостик к читателю, незримые языковые параллели с современностью, пусть даже некая сглаженность (например, переводы Вересаева)?
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наверное, здесь еще и техническая сложность: мне кажется, английский язык достаточно плохо коррелирует с гекзаметром, отсюда и все несчастья. ↩
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например, “Божественная комедия” Данте в переводе Михаила Лозинского тоже исключительно хороша. однако читать ее в таком изложении просто-таки удивительно скучно. ↩
клуб технического моделирования железной дороги
30 May 2013 | Culturology, Internet | No Comments
для тех, например, кто все еще не понимает, чем так хорош Tumblr:
Everyone’s Facebook feed is pretty much the same as everyone else’s of the same age. Twenty-year-olds pose in the club, 30-year-olds share wedding photos, by age 40 you’re looking at a lot of cute pictures of your friends’ kids. But with Tumblr, you never know what you’re going to get — even with people you know personally. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between a social graph and an interest graph[1].
итд.
находиться в поисках
29 May 2013 | Apple, Economics | No Comments
тем временем на конференции D11 исполнительный директор Apple, Тим Кук, убедительнейшим образом говорит о том, что компанию ничто не тревожит — и в чем-то он, разумеется, прав.
но вот беда, инвесторы думают иначе, и логично предположить, что волнуются они[1] как раз из-за отсутствия инноваций. а результат — результаты — могут, в итоге, быть самые интересные:
Let’s be very clear: should these next-generation products Cook has teased for years actually exist somewhere in a secretive lab in Cupertino, this is a blip in time for Apple. We’re simply between breakthroughs as an industry, searching for something that will galvanize a generation of technologists the way the iPhone did. Apple produced the last breakthrough, and people naturally expect that it will produce the next one given that so much of the company remains intact despite the loss of Jobs.
That may or may not happen. But until then either Apple or someone else produces that breakthrough, Cook’s public appearances grow less and less important: if all he’s going to do is cover ground he’s covered before without a new story to tell, the need to pay attention to Apple’s every word becomes less and less important[2].
цветомузыка
29 May 2013 | Music | No Comments
музыкальная анимационная машина и несколько прилагающихся видеороликов.
the language of man
29 May 2013 | Culturology, Linguistics | No Comments
Over the years, the European institutions have developed a vocabulary that differs from that of any recognised form of English. It includes words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers outside the EU institutions (‘planification’, ‘to precise’ or ‘telematics’ for example) and words that are used with a meaning, often derived from other languages, that is not usually found in English dictionaries (‘coherent’ being a case in point).
так победим
28 May 2013 | Censorship, Internet, Politics | No Comments
хорошая Маритье Шааке, член Европарламента от Королевства Нидерландов, написала программную статью о реальной угрозе нашим свободам в интернете:
Today people’s digital freedoms and the open internet are under threat. This is a truly global trend, though its manifestations differ. Repression and human rights violations have a growing technological component. We not only face concrete cybercrime/threats, in many countries, governments’ desire to control and repress have moved online. In other places it is rather their inaction and unbridled privatisation of the web and the essential, critical functions or use related to the internet and technologies. There is also the risk that well-intended cyber security measures have disproportionate collateral impact on our digital freedoms.
о поребриках
28 May 2013 | Culturology, Linguistics | 1 Comment
или еще немного языковых нюансов в географической степени:
This is intended as a sort of FAQ sheet to aid American (usually) fan-writers trying to give their stories a convincing British setting. It lists common (and some less common) differences which seem to pull a lot of writers up. More will be added as I think of them.
так же:
Readers might also be interested in the Separated by a Common Language blog, which examines linguistic differences between British and American English. Be warned though that this is a serious academic site which uses a lot of linguists’ jargon.
out of play
27 May 2013 | Linguistics, Sport | 2 Comments
в разных странах о спорте говорят по-разному — и нигде это не проявляется с большим воодушевлением, чем по разные стороны английского языка:
The different vocabulary used by fans in the US and UK – not just England – when discussing the same sports seems as entrenched as ever.
Prince Harry won American hearts for the way he handled a baseball bat on his recent visit – and hit a home run.
But the same could not be said for his compatriots. A clip in which the BBC described the sport as “cricket for Americans” was widely circulated in the US, prompting much mirth.
там даже есть небольшой футбольный список, ага.